


In the Shadow of Two Joshes

by pipisafoat



Series: Abby Lyman [1]
Category: The West Wing
Genre: ATVA, Canon Disabled Character, Disability, Disabled Character, Gen, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, invisible disability
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-26
Updated: 2017-11-26
Packaged: 2019-02-06 21:41:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,162
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12826689
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pipisafoat/pseuds/pipisafoat
Summary: Josh is forced to confront a painful truth about himself. Where does he turn for help?





	In the Shadow of Two Joshes

**Author's Note:**

> Warning for no-holds-barred description of a PTSD "episode" with some dissociation, anxiety/panic, and violence. I feel it's not enough to warrant an official warning but would prefer to err on the side of caution with this warning note!

Time slows down. Josh feels like a passenger in his own body, not able to act or to stop himself from doing something rash. He recognizes the feeling from the time in the Oval Office, but that doesn’t help.

“And if you think for a second it could happen with your little plan, you’re all fucking idiots!” his mouth yells. He winces and tries to shut up, but the tirade continues. “So fuck you all! You can’t do this!”

“Josh.” Leo’s in front of him suddenly, hands on Josh’s shoulders. “Josh, calm down. Come back.”

He tries to talk, to tell Leo that he’s stuck inside his own self, though he’s pretty sure the older man already knows. He works at speaking the way he works at uncooperative Congressmen, works at it until his heart feels like it’s going to explode out of his chest, but one second later it’s all for nothing.

“You calm down!”

Leo squeezes JOsh’s shoulders, pushes him gently back a step. _Yes, sitting down,_ Josh agrees, eager for anything that might help him get back in control of his body, his mind, but instead he finds muscles like iron. He screams internally as a fist flies through the air without warning. He knows without thought that it’s aimed for Leo’s temple, that it could do actual damage to his closest father figure, and keeps on screaming as loudly as he can. He manages to turn his body at the last second, skewing the aim of the fist just slightly, but it’s enough not to connect with Leo’s temple. Instead, his first connects crookedly with Leo’s nose, and the glass curtain separating Josh from his body disappears without a trace.

“Oh, God,” he says blankly, staring at his clenched fist in horror. He can’t trust it not to punch someone else now, but he can’t apologize for something he’s not sure he did in the first place. “Oh my God. Leo—“

The older man holds up a hand to stop him. “Margaret!” he calls, nodding to his assistant when she appears in the doorway. "Go to your office and don’t leave it,” he orders Josh. “Do not make any phone calls or answer any emails that are even slightly connected to your job. Do not see anybody. I will brief the President alone and deal with you later. Do not leave your office, Josh. Is that clear?”

Margaret disappears again without a word, leaving Josh to stare at the closed door rather than meet the gaze of any of the others in the room. Sam’s seen him like that before, though perhaps not that bad, but CJ and Toby … He doesn’t want her pity, and he can’t handle his blank look that inspires you to reflect your own reaction.

“Is that clear, Joshua?”

He flinches, knows it’s visible. Leo hasn’t used his full name since the Mary Marsh incident, hasn’t used it in front of people since he was an intern. “Yes, sir,” he answers, careful to enunciate clearly even though he’s speaking to his rather scuffed shoes. “Leo, I’m—“

“Later,” Leo interrupts. “Go.”

He slinks out of Leo’s office and into Margaret’s, glad there’s nobody waiting for an audience with the Chief of Staff. It gives him a minute to pull himself together, on the outside at least. He straightens his shoulders and his jacket, adjusts his belt minutely then returns it to its original position, lifts a hand to his hair before giving one soft chuckle and tucking his hand back into a pocket.

“May I?” Margaret asks, standing behind her desk. “Your tie,” she elaborates when he tilts his head at her in confusion.

He nods and lifts his chin helpfully as she tightens and straightens the unruly strip of fabric. It feels weird not to have the moment underscored by all the things that define his relationship with Donna, but the smile she gives him as she steps back reminds him of nobody more than his mother, if his mother ever did anything but slap his head and tell him to check a mirror. “Thank you,” he tells Margaret, resisting the sudden urge to wax eloquent - well, eloquent for him - about all the little things she’s done to make the West Wing more bearable.

“You’re welcome,” she replies, returning to her desk. “I told Donna what Leo said but not what happened,” she adds as she sits and turns her eyes back to her computer. “I’m sure she’s rearranging your schedule for you.”

Well, he can’t swear at someone who just fixed his tie, and he just thanked her so won’t do it again so soon. He settles for a noncommittal nod on his way out of the room.

Ed and Larry grab him almost as soon as he emerges into the hallway. They can test his patience on a good day, but he’s not babysitting their every move or even remotely interested in their current project. “Stop,” he tells them, suiting action to words. The traffic of the hallway doesn’t even stutter as people flow around them on either side. “Either you’re senior staffers who can be trusted with these assignments or not. If you have a specific question for me, ask it. If you just want me to check your work … this isn’t your undergraduate degree, and I’m not the TA you’re sleeping with. You haven’t fucked up massively in months. Present the done deal to Toby or quit your jobs.” He wants to look over his shoulder at them as he strides away, sure they’re gaping like fish on a line, but he doesn’t want to ruin the effect of walking off like that. Not to mention Leo’s orders, though he can’t help the number of hallway meetings happening on any given day. He’s lucky to avoid everyone else as he weaves and dodges, finally stepping into his blissfully empty office.

Well, almost empty. Donna stands beside his too-clean desk, perfectly placed to focus on him the moment he enters. He shuts the door.

“My folders—“

“Are safely organized and stored,” Donna answers over him. “I put some phone numbers there instead.” She steps toward him, hesitating once before coming up close enough to fidget with his tie. He trusts Margaret to have gotten it straight, so this has to be something she’s doing for her own sake rather than for his image. “Can you talk about it?”

He sets a hand over the knot of his tie, gently blocks her access. “I have phone calls to make,” he tells her in response. Yes, he’ll talk about it, but only three times, only when he has to. He doesn’t want to tell any of them, either, but they’ve drilled it into his head that he can’t get help if he doesn’t tell them what’s happening.

Donna’s hands move further down the tie rather than disengaging as she usually does when he blocks her. “Are you … that’s a stupid question. I don’t know what I want to ask.”

A large part of Josh is telling him to turn that anger onto her. If you don’t know what to ask, then stop asking. “I’m not injured,” he reassures her, flexing his right hand to be sure that’s not a lie. He puts aside the minor matter of Leo’s likely-broken nose for now. He knows Donna too well to give her anything to worry about.

“That’s the best you’ll give me?” she says in a teasing tone, but the true worry behind the words shows in her unrelenting fidgeting. His tie is no longer straight.

He catches her eyes and nods. “I need your help,” he says quietly, then clears his throat at her instant nod. “I need you to go back out there and pretend everything is normal. I need you to keep everyone except Leo out of my office. I need you to keep me in my office, even when I get bored after this phone calls.”

“I have a trashy romance novel in my desk if you need it,” Donna offers with a smile that looks as fake as one she’d wear in a beauty pageant.

“Donna….” He sighs and runs a hand over his face. He broke in Leo’s office, for a minute. He was close to breaking again at his full name. He feels shaky and nauseous and just this close to breaking again, standing here in his office doing nothing, but he has to try, has to ask, because this is Donna. “What do you need to be able to do this?”

She leans back without moving her feet and studies his face. “I’m not sure you should be asking that,” she answers. “You look pretty crappy.”

He rolls his eyes at her assessment, feeling a little better after the insult. “If I can’t do it, I won’t do it, and you’re no worse for me asking,” he explains.

“A hug,” she replies. “I need to feel that you’re alright. And you aren’t, and that’s okay, but I need to feel that you’re as alright as you are.”

Josh draws her in and wraps his arms around her shoulders, feels her arms latch around his waist. Their hips are keeping a respectable distance, but their faces are in each other’s shoulders. He drops his head to rest on her, then lifts one arm to pull her hair off to the side so he can breathe in the join between neck and shoulder. One slow, shuddering breath after another until he notices one of her arms is across his upper body and holding him close while the other remains at his waist. One slow, shuddering breath after another until he has to start fighting the urge to cry. One slow, shuddering breath after another until finally they aren’t shuddering anymore. 

He doesn’t pull back as soon as he’s feeling more stable, though. The hug may have benefitted him, but it was for Donna. “How are you doing?” he asks softly, the words puffing against her neck and dissipating as air.

“I can do what you need,” she replies, clenching her arms around him tighter. He returns the grip and eases off as soon as she does. “Thank you.”

He disentangles himself and nods at her in response. ‘You’re welcome’ seems too trite and one-sided for that hug. Josh reaches out and helps her twitch her clothes back into complete order, nothing crooked, smirking when she catches his eye. He feels … well, he could smirk. Still a bit shaky, but back in control. He rounds his desk to sit in his chair as Donna gives him one last assessing glance before leaving his office.

She has all three numbers he’s likely to need on his desk on an index card, and he decides for no conscious reason to start at the bottom and work his way up if he has to. He dials carefully, checking the card as he goes.

“Stanley Keyworth.”

Josh opens his mouth, shuts it, then tries again with his eyes focused on his miraculously clean file cabinet instead of the index card. “Josh Lyman,” he replies, sounding for all the world like he’s answering a phone call instead of placing one.

“How are you?” Stanley asks calmly.

Josh sighs. “Not good.” 

“There’s a short pause before Stanley prompts, “How so?”

“I … It’s like things are happening that I can’t control.”

“Nobody can control everything, Josh,” Stanley tells him with a gentleness that makes Josh close his eyes and shake a little bit.

He lets out a sigh as he fights to get the shaking back under control. “I know. I don’t mean that. More like my body is doing things I can’t control. I’m doing things that I can’t stop and didn’t start.”

“What sort of things?”

“Yelling. Swearing. The other day I broke some dishes throwing them against the wall. It’s like there’s a layer of dirty glass between me and what I’m doing then. And….” He trails off, pressing a hand hard against his forehead. ‘Say it,’ he mouths to himself. ‘Tell him.’

“And?” Stanley asks.

‘No holding back,’ he reminds himself silently. “Just now,” he starts, but his words stumble to a halt. He feels the nausea rising violently, clawing its way up his throat. “Leo...” He feels his hand slide up into his hair and grasp a handful before pulling, hard. The sensation grounds him a little bit, and he swallows against the nausea before trying again. “I…” He takes a deep breath and lets it huff back out quickly.

“Okay. Josh, we’re going to leave that alone for a second. Breathe with me instead,” Stanley says firmly. “Ready? Breath in - two - three - four. Hold it - good - three - four - five - six - seven. Now out slowly - three - four - five - six - seven - eight. In again - two - three - four.”

“I punched Leo,” Josh blurts out. He inhales sharply in surprise, grinding the heel of his hand into his eyes. That was not how he was planning to say it.

There’s silence on the line for a long moment, and Josh opens his eyes to stare at the phone, make sure the connection hasn’t been lost.

“Okay,” Stanley finally says quietly. “Josh, I need you to answer some questions honestly for me. I’m not judging you; I need to know so I can help you.”

“Yeah. Okay.” Josh switches the phone to his left ear and stretches his right hand. He looks at his knuckles, trying to decide if they’ll bruise or not.

“Have you been following up with the psychiatrist I recommended?”

“Yes.”

“Good. Are you taking the medication he’s prescribed?”

“I am,” Josh confirms. “It’s helping, but not enough. He says I’ve hit the maximum dosage, though. Of both of them.”

“How about a therapist?” Stanley asks.

“Every week.”

“How’s that going?”

Josh shrugs to himself. “He says I’m improving. I don’t feel it.”

“Have you told him that?”

“Yeah. He said it isn’t uncommon for me to feel like it’s worse before better.”

“That’s right,” Stanley confirms. “Why—“

“It’s been months, and I’ve never skipped a session, and I do whatever he tells me to do outside of the sessions. How long until I feel better?” Josh gasps for an unsteady breath but quickly calms it in Stanley’s silence. “Sorry. I know you don’t know. What were you asking?"

He can hear Stanley hesitate; he’s sure the man is trying to decide whether to address Josh’s almost-whiny question. Stanley clears his throat slowly, buying time to think about it. “Why did you call me instead of your therapist or psychiatrist today?”

Now it’s Josh’s turn to hesitate, completely unsure. “I … guess you’re the guy to call in an emergency? And this is … I can’t … Stanley, this feels like Christmas Eve did, but with broken bones.”

“Okay. That’s fine, Josh.” Stanley pauses, and Josh can hear the drawer to a filing cabinet open and close. “Josh, I still have your release form, and it’s current. Do I have your permission to talk to your therapist and psychiatrist about this phone conversation and our options from here?”

“Yes,” Josh answers, sure he’s never meant anything so entirely in his life. A sudden sense of relief washes over him that he won’t have to make those phone calls.

“Do you feel like you’re going to hurt anyone else?” Stanley asks.

“No….”

“But?”

Josh swallows hard. Honesty. “I don’t feel like I will, but I didn’t feel like I would this afternoon, either, and now Leo probably has a broken nose.”

“Do you feel like you might hurt yourself again?”

“No,” Josh answers without hesitation. He’s actually feeling pretty safe on this count, because every time he wants to, “I smash dishes instead.”

A snort of pure amusement filters down the line for about one second before being quelled. “Sorry,” Stanley says immediately. “I know that’s not funny. It’s, ah….”

“A terrible coping mechanism, but slightly better than hurting myself?” Josh offers sincerely.

“Sounds about right,” Stanley agrees. “When you’re feeling like hurting someone or yourself or your dishes, can you tell me what it is you’re feeling?”

This time, it’s Josh who laughs. “When we first met, you said the last thing you wanted me to talk about was my feelings,” he points out. “I guess anger.”

“Don’t guess,” Stanley instructs. “Take a minute. Think about it. I have time.”

“Okay.” Josh closes his eyes and tries to remember without falling into the feeling. “When it’s the dishes, like when it was my hand, it’s … desperation. Like I’m stuck in a thought and that’s the only way out.”

“Do you feel that way other times but get out of those thoughts without hurting yourself or breaking something?” Stanley asks.

Josh thinks for a minute. “Yeah. If Donna’s around, she notices. She can pull me out of it. Sometimes I can sort of tell it’s trying to happen and stop it before it starts, but usually not.”

“And when you hurt someone else?”

“When I hurt Leo, you mean,” Josh mutters. “I was … scared. Mad because I was scared.”

“Good job, Josh,” Stanley praises quietly. “And how are you feeling now?”

“Kind of afraid now,” Josh admits in a whisper, mentally chanting ‘honesty, honesty’ over and over. “I could be arrested for assault or locked up in a mental ward for what I’ve said.”

Stanley hums quietly. “Those are very valid worries, Josh. Is that all you feel?”

He swallows hard. This is no worse than anything he’s already admitted. “Confused and scared of what’s going on with me,” he whispers. “Afraid of what Leo will tell me. But … more balanced than before. Here with the world instead of behind that glass.”

“That’s good,” Stanley says gently. “Hold onto that feeling.”

A knock on his door distracts Josh, and he looks up to see Donna’s head sticking through a small gap. “Leo,” she tells him.

“Hang on,” he tells Stanley, placing the phone against his chest. “Donna, come here for a second.”

She nods, disappears behind the door for a few seconds, then enters Josh’s office and shuts the door behind her.

“Can you talk to Stanley for a minute?” he asks her. “Give him an outside perspective?”

“Of course,” she agrees, and he wants to take an eraser and get rid of the worry lines showing on her forehead.

He raises the phone from his chest back to his ear. “Stanley—“

“Is that Donna? Not a bad idea.”

Josh takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly. “Leo wants to see me now,” he tells Stanley.

“Keep breathing. You’ll be okay,” Stanley offers. “When I get off with Donna, I’m going to call your therapist and psychiatrist. One of us will call you back today.”

Josh nods. “Okay. Thank you.” He hands the phone to Donna and stands up from his chair, rolling it over toward her in what he hopes is a transparent offer. “Talk in here while I see Leo,” he tells her.


End file.
